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Sports media: Shock jock insensitivity new low for radio

The Edge 102.1’s morning deejay Dean Blundell has been taken to task for comments surrounding the death of Edmonton Oilers prospect Kristians Pelss. In the U.S., three Atlanta radio personalities have been fired for their attempts at humour involving former NFL player Steve Gleason, who suffers from ALS.

Blundell, who is from Alberta, got in trouble for attempting to make a joke by saying Pelss, who went missing after plunging into a river in Latvia, did it so that he wouldn’t have to play in Edmonton: “How much must it suck playing hockey in Edmonton when you . . . I’m not going back. I mean, you’d rather jump off a bridge in like a war-torn country in a freezing cold river than go back to Edmonton. Shame. I hope they find him. I’ve been to Edmonton. I know what that guy’s talking about.”

Blundell was clearly trying to take a shot at the city of Edmonton and has received a firestorm of criticism from media there and online. He apologized on Twitter, saying “Truly sorry for untimely remarks about Kristians Pelss. Should have waited to know. Thoughts w(ith) family and friends. #lessonlearned.”

At the time of the comments Pelss had been reported missing. While his body has since been recovered, it has not been confirmed as a suicide. Regardless, the joke was clearly in poor taste.

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As for the other incident, Steve Shapiro, Nick Cellini and Chris Dimino — whose show, Mayhem in the A.M., airs on 790 The Zone in Atlanta — decided Gleason’s ailment, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, would make good fodder for a skit. Gleason, who this week guest wrote Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback column, has lost the ability to speak, so he uses a computer aid. The radio deejays pretended Gleason was a guest with a robotic voice speaking for him and proceeded with a running gag about knock-knock jokes, one of which ended with: “Smother. “Smother Who?” “Smother me. Do me a favour.”

This goes beyond poor taste to just ghoulish, and listening to it you can almost hear Shapiro, Cellini and Dimino belatedly realizing what a poor choice it was. The higher-ups in the station agreed, first suspending the personalities and then firing all three.

Blundell, meanwhile, has not faced any discipline for his comments concerning Pelss, although according to his Twitter feed he will be replaying the original comments and then addressing the controversy on his show Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. (Editor’s note: he didn’t address it before he left the air at 10 a.m.)

Without the explosion of social media, these things might just die in the ether. Blundell was first called out by an Edmonton Oilers blogger who transcribed the comments, which were subsequently picked up by sports reporters.

Blundell was criticized on Twitter by sportswriters — including the Sun’s Steve Simmons and the National Post’s Bruce Arthur — and even former major league baseball player Jose Canseco.

“What a stupid man (Dean Blundell) is. The death of a young man, Kristians Pelss, is no one’s comedy. #idiot,” wrote Simmons, before he used even harsher language in response to a tweet from Blundell.

While Blundell did apologize on Twitter, he also went on the 140-character offensive calling Simmons a “hack” and retweeting comments critical of him, which prompted Arthur to write: “He tried to make himself the victim of the deserved backlash, which is hilarious, sad, and deeply pathetic.” According to another Arthur tweet, Blundell tweeted back threatening legal action for the criticism.

There are a number of factors to consider in all this.

First off, Pelss’ death is a sad and tragic thing. If it is ruled a suicide, it’s the kind of story that a few short years ago might not have been covered at all. Reporting on suicides was one of the few remaining taboos in mainstream media coverage, with one of the fears being that it fuels copycats. Suicide reporting was the subject of an excellent award-winning piece by Star reporter Liam Casey for the Ryerson Review of Journalism, whose conclusion was that the stigma around not reporting it is starting to lift — particularly it if involves a prominent person or there is a socially responsible reason to make it public.

Those rules and filters obviously don’t apply to talk radio, Twitter and other social media where everything is fair game, particularly under the catch-all cover of humour.

We know how things have turned out in Atlanta, where even though Gleason himself has accepted apologies those three shock jocks have lost their jobs.

We’ll learn more on Wednesday morning about Blundell’s situation — will it be a more expansive apology, or an explanation about the joke’s context, or a mealy-mouthed “sorry if I offended anyone? — and any fallout.

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